Retiree Hard At Work Creating Jobs

Barrie Maguire illustration

Barrie Maguire illustration

RICHARD W. GALANTE | OTHER OPINIONThe Hartford Courant

The final votes are tallied and at last it's time to stop talking and start creating jobs.

The self-proclaimed job creators who ran for office did create jobs — especially during their campaigns — but those jobs were temporary. Now that the election is over, so are they. Jobs that sustain an economy are permanent and far-reaching, and for these, it is time we look to the real job creators — people like me.

I am a job creator, and have been for many years. You may be a job creator, too. Let me explain.

In our economy jobs are created by spending money. If you are doing this, you are a job creator. Keep up the good work. If you have retired and especially if you have a funded pension, you are a very productive job creator.

As a former schoolteacher, all of my monthly income comes from a state teachers' retirement pension fund. Since I retired, that entire income has been put directly back into the economy. I make no investments, deposit nothing into any accounts on or offshore, have little credit card debt, and no house mortgage. Every year, in spending and taxes, I've redistributed all of my pension and more back into the economy. When they say that you can't give 110 percent, they are wrong. I give more than 120 percent (the extra coming from an IRA distribution).

To all the above, thank you. We hope you can keep and create more jobs because of our support. We will continue to share with you the redistribution of all of our "wealth."

However, my greatest achievement as a job creator began in June 2008 when I retired. On that day I created two jobs. My retirement freed up enough savings (in salary and benefits) for nearly two people to be hired. That's two jobs created from one.

These two new employees then became job creators too. Each of them had formerly been working at two jobs. When they left those to work for my employer, it made available the four jobs they had been doing. Now we were all creating jobs together. Retiring not only made me a job creator, but a creator of job creators.

When these two new job creators left their jobs they began creating job creators, too. Leaving our jobs made more jobs available to more people and a small snowball of job creation began to pick up speed. All of this came about because of the retirement of just one public school teacher, a job that was created by government through taxes.

As public and private sector employee retire, this snowball effect could gain momentum. The spending in the economy that would then occur would begin an avalanche of job creation. Everyone would benefit.

One percenters can say they are job creators. But we are job creators. For the millions of Americans who need a job, we're doing our best to help.